Poorly Rowan Tree

I have a very poorly Rowan Tree which is approx. 7 years old. It has up until earlier on this year had leaves, shoots and berries every year. I have fed this tree with bone meal twice yearly in Spring and mid-Autumn. It is situated on a gentle incline, the dip of which has been quite water-logged for most of the year. There has been no sign of fungus activity and the roots appear firmly attached.

This year it started with small buds which seemed dry up on the branches / twigs early on in March. The upper layer of bark has increasingly showed a whitish mottled discolouration whilst the underneath appears to be have more reddish-brown patches. It has not had any leaves or berries this year at all. I am concerned that it has died or is dying as the branches are now drying out.The other Rowan trees near iton the lower part of the incline show similar problems, while the larger, more established Rowanson higher ground appear to be in good health. Other nearby different species of trees appear healthy.

Last week the upper layer of bark has started to peel off, exposing a reddish-brown underneath and some of the lower branches have dried out completely and snap easily.

Can anyone offer me any advice about how to proceed ? I would like to try save this tree if possible and prevent any other nearby Rowans sucumbing to disease.

it dosent sound good but you mention wet ground look up phytophthora which is a fungal disease i know you said that theres no signs of fugal but some times its hard to notice this one until it is to late !!

there,s not much you can do to save the worst effected and if you have looked up phytoph it probaly says there,s no chemicals available to the amatuer gardener but there use to be one what was used for all garden fungicide and is still sold as a garden cleaning product its called armillatox look it up see if you can find the old uses it had and mixing and applying , i still use it for various problems in the gardens ,

Because of EU regulations Armillatox is only sold in the UK as a garden cleaner. This is only because of the huge cost of testing etc to show compliance. However in the US it is still sold for its original uses, and if you go to the Armillatox US website, you can still find there the uses for which it used to be approved in the UK. Check out http://www.armillatox.com/
Cheers,
Alex

All, 4 out of 4, rowan trees around here that I can think of are either dead or dying. The one outside my house looked poorly two years ago and we took it out last year. Since then there has twice been a yellow fungus growing out of its remaining burried roots in the autumns (not honey fungus as far as I can tell - no thick boot-laces). Perhaps interestingly, the birds did not eat the berries off one of the dying trees this year.

More likely is the wet: sounds like your tree has got big enough for its roots to be reaching down into the sodden ground. If that is the case, it's game over, I'm afraid. Rowan's classic haunt is up a mountain, where rainfall is high but drainage is great.

Willows, dogwoods and alders give you a big choice to play with and thrive on wet ground. Dogwoods are normally cut back each year to keep them producing lots of pretty young stems, but if you don't do that they will make lots of berries for the birds.

By all means try to save it, but I fear that it is capable of dying all by itself!